Robert McColl Millar's book A History of the Scots Language takes an ambitious and novel approach in examining the entire social and linguistic history of the Scots language, rather than choosing to focus on one side, as previous historical Scots publications have done. The result is a volume that brings together an incredible breadth of material from across the linguistic fields, incorporating an extensive historical timeline with purely linguistic developments and changes. As such, it forms an excellent starting point for scholars and students wishing to get a broad overview of the Scots language, its emergence and various stages of development, and the range of issues past and present that colour its character. Millar has chosen to keep the sociolinguistic strictly separate from the formal linguistic changes, and naturally some level of division is necessary to avoid complicating an already dense and complex discussion. However, the inevitable cross-over between the social and the linguistic means this strict separation does feel somewhat artificial, and occasionally the discussion lacks the supporting evidence or demonstrative power that a linguistic example or social explanation could bring to the conversation. Discussing morpho-syntactic changes that took place in Scots, for instance, would have benefitted from more consideration of why these changes took place when they did and how external factors such as the printing press or upper-class movements toward Anglicisation played a role. This would have enabled Millar's wealth of knowledge concerning the social history of Scots, clearly evident in the opening chapters, to feed back into the latter chapters and suggest the interaction between the first half of the book and the second, utilising the very value of this publication. The structuring of the book, however, is excellent – Millar provides a short introduction and conclusion to every chapter that succinctly sets the scene or sums up its contents, and uses these sections to draw continual links between the sociolinguistic and linguistic, helping to bridge the somewhat unnatural divide between the two sections.
Alongside incorporating both social and linguistic developments in one place, A History of the Scots Language also ‘attempts as deep a historical coverage as is possible’ (p. ix). Whilst commendable, this runs the risk that the book strives to cover too much material within a limited scope. Some sections felt rather brief whilst the relevance of the material to the history of Scots, specifically, was missing in others. By trying to discuss everything at once – history, linguistics, literature, historical Scots, modern Scots, dialects and the emergence of Scottish Standard English – the net result is that no particular topic is covered in detail, and the book at times reads like an introductory textbook on the history of English varieties in the British Isles, at times like a history of Scots, and at times like a personal collection of stories. Nor does this publication bring very much new material to the table, and some sections, such as the ‘Historical phonology of Scots’ (chapter 5), are largely a summary of previous work, particularly Johnston (Reference Johnston1997). Rather, its strength is in bringing together and briefly summarising the main features, historical developments and previous research of Scots, and as such, it makes for a useful reference guide for interested students completely unfamiliar with Scots.
Millar assists in this by making frequent reference to the existing canon of research on Scots, although the overwhelming majority of these references are his own works. As a result, this book often reads like a summary of Millar's work over the past decades. Granted, he has produced a wealth of informative, insightful and valuable research into both modern and historical varieties of Scots, bringing new findings to light and continuing to uncover various developments within the Scots speaking and writing world. His research strength lies both in the broad range of linguistic fields and areas he has investigated, as well as his deep personal connection to the language, particularly the varieties of Northern and Insular Scots. Indeed, it is especially in reference to these varieties that his knowledge shines through – the level of detail and explanations are impressive yet accessible to the reader. However, as a book that purports to be a history of the Scots language, it does feel at times that a rather disproportionate amount of attention is given to these dialects. A more even evaluation of the nature of different varieties and/or geographic areas, along with more overall summarising would have assisted the discussion. Additionally, most of the references – though still invaluable for their contributions to the field – are somewhat dated. The volume could have been strengthened with the inclusion and recognition of more recent publications and research into Scots (cf. Smith Reference Smith, Kortmann and Lunkenheimer2012; Elsweiler Reference Elsweiler2016; Shoemark et al. Reference Shoemark, Sur, Shrimpton, Murray, Goldwater, Lapata, Blunsom and Koller2017; Gotthard Reference Gotthard2019, Reference Gotthard2021).
The introductory chapter ‘What is Scots?’ (pp. 1–18) provides a clear blueprint for the rest of the book, setting out important considerations such as Millar's choice to define Scots as a language (something still not universally agreed in the field), his choice of periodisation and his focus on the different dialects; it acknowledges potential shortcomings in terms of the features it analyses or the proposed relationships set out. This presents a nuanced and balanced opening chapter to the book. Chapter 2 (pp. 19–30) focuses on the historical background of Scots, and Millar does not begin his historical timeline with the emergence of Scots in the medieval burgh system, but rather goes right back to Proto-Indo-European and the West Germanic origins of Scots. Whilst fulfilling Millar's intention to provide as deep a historical coverage as possible, it does leave the reader wondering how relevant this is for understanding the history of Scots. Had this been a book on the origins and history of West Germanic languages, or languages on the British Isles, this may have felt more appropriate, but the connection of such broad linguistic developments to Scots is not reinforced.
Chapter 3 (pp. 31–51) examines the ‘rise’ of Scots during its development and spread throughout Lowland Scotland, and this again takes a very broad view, covering a wide swathe of temporal and linguistic development. More specific consideration of how the historical movements that affected Gaelic were relevant for understanding the Scots situation would have strengthened this chapter, given that this book is a history of Scots, not of the Scottish languages. For instance, section 3.3.1 ‘Gaelic and the Church’ has little reflection of how this relationship affected Scots at this time. Nonetheless, this chapter excels in offering what much of the previous scholarship on Scots has not – a detailed discussion of the interaction between Scots and Gaelic, and overt recognition of the longstanding and ongoing presence of Gaelic alongside Scots in Scotland. Research on each variety has remained largely separate, but Millar makes continual links between them, whilst recognising that there are still questions to be answered. Whilst comprehensive, the chapter is made somewhat difficult to follow by the jumps it makes between spoken and written, dialectal and ‘standardising’ Scots. Additionally, although Millar provides extracts of Scottish writing to demonstrate changes, a more thorough discussion of their contents would have aided the connection between the different social events precipitating the rise in Scots and their outcomes. Similarly, a few examples of borrowings (from Norse or Dutch, for instance) could elucidate the changes taking place, or demonstrate what ‘gradually Anglicised’ looked like, and this is where the discussion is hampered by the sharp divide between sociolinguistic and linguistic content.
Chapter 4 (pp. 52–83) focuses on the ‘decline’ of Scots and its position in Scotland during the last two centuries. This chapter reads largely as a historical narrative rather than a linguistic discussion, in which a considerable timeframe and range of socio-political movements are covered, though Millar's depth of knowledge provides a level of insight and acuity that reflects many years of scholarship and research. Throughout, there is a pervading sense of nostalgia and sadness at the slow ‘demise’ of Scots in modern times, but little discussion of the features of modern, urban varieties of Scots, and such varieties are largely dismissed. This suggests the emotional investment of the author but also bias towards a language variety no longer shared by younger, modern-day speakers, leaving those unfamiliar with modern-day Scots with little by way of example or explanation.
Chapter 5 (pp. 84–122) focuses on the phonological developments and characteristics of Scots, with a particular focus on the different dialect areas and how these differ across the lexical sets. Examining the whole phonological system of Scots and its dialects could easily constitute a book within itself, yet Millar has managed to condense this information into a single chapter. This, he reminds us, necessarily requires leaving aside any discussion that traces the Scots vowel system to Indo-European, or even its later ancestor, Proto-Germanic (p. 95), which seems to run counter to discussions around these reconstructed varieties in the sociolinguistic section of the book, leaving the reader wondering whether that level of coverage in chapter 1 was really necessary. The long section on the Great Vowel Shift at the beginning would benefit from having some visual depictions or diagrams to help break down the complex series of changes it describes, along with a more encompassing evaluation of its relevance to Scots phonology (only BEAT is briefly discussed in the concluding section). However, in general the chapter is well structured with frequent signposts throughout; additionally, Millar acknowledges a number of caveats and issues with historical phonological reconstruction, which provide the chapter with a nuanced, sophisticated overview of a complicated linguistic field.
What would have strengthened chapter 5 would have been use of spelling examples to demonstrate evidence of these realisations and changes. While allusions to the written record are made – ‘Most of the written evidence concurs with the idea’ (p. 105), ‘If orthographic evidence is anything to go by’ (p. 107), ‘There is some Middle Scots evidence for confusion’ (p. 108) – specific orthographic features are not given. Students or scholars interested in historical Scots pronunciations would be unable to identify which spellings to investigate based on this chapter alone. Additionally, the focus seems to be overwhelmingly on the modern-day outcomes of phonetic changes, rather than detailing the changes themselves (though some sets, like oot, do see thorough diachronic explanation), and the Northern and Insular dialects feature heavily throughout the discussion. This no doubt reflects Millar's personal interests in these varieties, as well as his stated aim in the preface of ‘maintaining a focus on the modern dialects as the outcome of the changes involved rather than as an adjunct to the written form’ (p. ix), and on that front this chapter excels, but at cost to the historical discussion at times. Overall, this chapter is valuable as a key overview of Scots phonology and large-scale phonological developments influencing the language, such as the Scottish Vowel Length Rule. Shortcomings aside, this would form a useful reference guide for newcomers to the field, and there is consistent rationalising of the analytical approach taken, which helps to provide clarity in what is inadvertently a dense and content-heavy chapter.
Chapter 6 (pp. 123–51) covers Scots morphosyntax and again the breadth of coverage is called into question by the detailed discussion of the Old English case system it begins with, a system that had all but disappeared in the earliest records of Scots. This section could have been summarised simply with the closing sentence of the paragraph, ‘Because these changes passed through the various dialects by at least the high Middle Ages, moreover, the morphosyntactic differences between Modern Scots and Modern English are not as great’ (p. 125). While this reflects Millar's aim to give as comprehensive a coverage as possible and place Scots within its widest historical context, it again gives the book the feel that it is a general historical textbook of English varieties spoken in Britain. The remainder of the chapter involves a lot of synthesising of earlier work taken from The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language (Jones Reference Jones1997) as well as many personal anecdotes. Whilst contributions from King (Reference King1997) and Beal (Reference Beal and Jones1997) have been crucial to the field, recognition of more recent work (e.g. Miller Reference Miller, Kortmann and Schneider2004; Smith Reference Smith, Kortmann and Lunkenheimer2012) and examples of the phenomena in written or spoken contexts would have strengthened this section. However, the complexity of this research area is recognised, and the sophisticated discussion around aspects such as the overlaps between spoken and written Scots, or different arguments for inflectional loss, provides a good synthesis of current and previous debates in the field that would benefit researchers new to historical Scots morphosyntax.
Chapter 7 (pp. 152–73) focuses on Scots lexis, and this chapter is perhaps the strongest and most eloquent of the book. The discussion is coherent and easy to follow, the motivation for the analysis given is clear and rational, and it addresses limitations or liberties that had to be taken; Millar is careful to highlight the potential difficulties in evaluating etymologies and the origins of lexical items. His background and interest in this field shine through, and his addition of other resources to consult is helpful to would-be scholars in this field. There is, admittedly, a very heavy focus on traditional Scots and the story is entirely one of attrition, whereas some conversation around new or urban Scots features would have rounded out the discussion more. All the same, the many examples he provides from across the dialectal map of Scotland give a comprehensive picture of change over time and changing ways of life precipitating this reduction. The final concluding section of the book (pp. 174–5) is similarly impressive; it is succinct, nuanced and ties together several recurring strands of thought we encounter throughout the different chapters. It identifies research gaps and the work still to be done, though there is rather limited acknowledgement of scholars currently working in the field other than Millar himself, or of resources that have become available to address some of these gaps, like the Helsinki Corpus of Scottish Correspondence (1540–1750) or the Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing (1700–1945).
A History of the Scots Language sits somewhere between Millar's A Sociolinguistic History of Scotland (Reference Millar2020) and The Edinburgh History of the Scots Language (1997), and its greatest contribution is perhaps that it brings valuable material from both into one volume, providing an extensive and extremely broad-ranging reference guide. The main shortcoming perhaps with this volume is that it tries to do too much at once, covering an incredibly broad remit that starts with Indo-European and finishes with contemporary Scots, that spans the length and breadth of Scotland and Northern Ireland, and that examines both sociolinguistic and linguistic changes in the language(s). Rather than providing a deep, comprehensive discussion of the social and linguistic trajectory of Scots, this publication instead makes for a useful reference guide for interested students unfamiliar with Scots. The simple language and explanations throughout do suggest this book is largely pitched to a non-specialised audience or new scholars to the field who do not yet have years of linguistic study behind them.
Millar acknowledges the potential for bias to be present, given his political leanings. As a native Scots speaker and active user of a variety that has seen clear retraction and levelling within his lifetime, it is perhaps not surprising that these sentiments occasionally creep into his writing. He refers to the ‘originally alien’ (p. 50), ‘foreign’ (p. 17) or ‘external’ (p. 56) source of English and the ‘danger’ (p. 82) of English ‘threatening’ our understanding of Scots (p. 73). Yet there were at least parts of the Scottish population who would have had semi-regular contact with English speakers and writers throughout history; moreover, the use of labels like ‘alien’ or ‘foreign’ suggests Standard English was an imported, mutually unintelligible variety dropped in from outer space rather than a closely related sister variety to Scots. It is undeniable that the standard emerging from the southern capital influenced Scots and displaced the language in a large number of written domains, but to consider such developments as threats denies historical and modern-day Scots speakers and writers the agency of their own decisions and interactions with the nascent standard. The nostalgia and emotional overtones that occasionally surface throughout the volume suggest the highly personal attachment of the author to his own language variety. While this sits at times adjacent to rigorous linguistic description, it does give the volume a tangible, affable quality and reminds readers that this is not the clinical study of a language disappearing from view, but the honest, lived reality of the author and thousands of other speakers and inhabitants within Scotland.
